Import from Scrivener

New in 1.5. If your book is in Scrivener, Grasmere can make a project from it: your folders and documents in the binder’s order, as Markdown files in ordinary folders. Grasmere only reads the Scrivener project. It isn’t changed, and the two aren’t joined afterwards: what you write in one doesn’t reach the other.

Importing

In Scrivener, close the project, so its newest words are saved.
In Grasmere, choose File ▸ Import Scrivener Project, or click “Import from Scrivener” on a new window’s start screen.
Choose the project (its .scriv).
Read the sheet. Before anything is made, it says what comes across, what’s kept to one side, what’s left behind, and the folders and files Grasmere will make, with counts for your project.
Click Import, then name the new project and choose where to keep its folder.

The new project opens on a document called “Imported from Scrivener”, which says the same again as done, with a link to every document concerned.

You can import before starting the free trial, to see your book in Grasmere first.

What comes across

In Scrivener	In Grasmere
Folders and documents	Folders and `.md` documents of the same names. A character a file name can’t have is left out, and two of a name in one folder get a number; either way the document keeps its title as a heading.
The binder’s order	The order in the contents. Each folder’s order is kept in its `index.md`.
The Draft (or Manuscript) folder	Its documents are in hand, so Review and Publishing show the book.
A document not ticked Include in Compile	It comes across in its place but isn’t in hand, so it isn’t in the book. Track it to put it in.
Synopsis (the index card)	`synopsis:` at the top of the document, where Review’s cards show it.
Status	`status:`. To Do, First Draft, Revised Draft and Final Draft become Unwritten, Draft, Revised and Final. A status of your own is kept as `scrivener-status:`.
Label and keywords	`label:` (or your own name for it, such as `pov:`) and `keywords:` at the top of the document.
Bold, italics, strikethrough, highlights	Markdown’s. Underlining becomes italics.
Headings, block quotes, lists, code	Markdown’s, from Scrivener’s styles of those names.
Footnotes, inline and linked	Markdown footnotes.
Links to other documents, and web links	Links.
Comments	Comments of your own in the margin, each on the words it was on.
Inline annotations	Taken out of the text and made comments of your own, each on the word before where it stood (the last word of the paragraph before, if it had a line to itself).
Pictures in the text	Files in your media folder, each shown where it was.
Research files (PDFs, pictures, recordings)	Copied as they are. The Research folder is the new project’s research folder.
Document notes (the Inspector’s)	A document each in “Document Notes”, linking to the one it’s about, so it shows in that document’s margin under Linked From.

A scene break typed as # or * * * on a line alone becomes a Markdown one. Anything you typed that Markdown would take for its own, such as a # at the start of a line, is kept as you typed it.

What’s kept to one side

Some things have no place in a Grasmere project. So they aren’t lost, they go in a folder of their own, “Imported from Scrivener”:

A comment or annotation whose place couldn’t be kept (one on words in a code block, say) is listed in one document, under its document’s name with the words it was on.
Snapshots are a document each, in a folder named for the document they’re of.
The Trash’s documents.
A document whose text couldn’t be read is empty in the project; its file is kept as Scrivener had it.

The folder is about the import and nothing else. Once you have what you want from it, delete it.

What’s left behind

Fonts, sizes, colours, indents and alignment.
A table’s grid: each cell’s words come across as a paragraph of their own.
Collections and saved searches.
Compile formats.
The corkboard’s and outliner’s layout, and icons.
Targets.

Older projects

Grasmere reads projects saved by Scrivener 3, on the Mac, Windows or iOS. A project last saved by Scrivener 2, or Scrivener 1 for Windows, keeps its files differently: open it once in Scrivener 3, which brings it up to date, then import it.